DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived Cleggeron era

Coalition have a new spin on that: War on the Poor

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/06/alan-budd-george-osborne-shambles

anyway, i powerskimmed this, could be a thing maybe

Oh oh

Various ministers keep mentioning that Budd guy, like it's a incantatory spell or something

This is also relevant in light of the Budd thing.

The country tipping back into recession would be disastrous for the country but also for any attempt to cut the deficit. Given Osbourne's response to any warnings of this kind has been to stick his fingers in his ears and go "ner ner ner not listening" he could get absolutely castigated for it. And no one liked Osbourne in the first place.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/7/6/1278432681132

really beginning to question the incestuous relationship btwn 'the thick of it' and real life labour party at this stage

Squirm, creep, squirm

I just don't believe that there is absolutely no money for this! Surely they could reserve something for a couple of hundred of the neediest projects.

i was beaten daily schooled in portakabin classrooms for a great deal of my higher ed and it did me no harm.

then i got on my bike and looked for work.

If it was that much of a priority they'd raise taxes, or reallocate money from elsewhere. It isn't a priority, big surprise.

I recently heard that there was an incredible Thick of It moment at the Treasury not so long ago - Osbourne had commissioned someone to calculate the true size of the hole in the public finances.

They went away and worked on it for ages and came back going "erm, there isn't a hole, Alistair Darling was if anything too pessimistic, everything's accounted for" and the response was sudden panic and "what the hell are we supposed to do now? We've told everyone there's a black hole".

i was in portakabins during the lower-sixth

character-building stuff

xpost

grr

our entire school was just portakabins, tell that to kids today? they'd laugh at you.

I know, you had it so much easier in those days

they wouldn't hear you over their ipods

and they can't speak english anyway

it's all 'ting dis' and 'innit dat, bruv', innit bruv?

tru dat

And that's just in Ireland

1 tru ting you say bruv

KMT @u Blud.

The public library in my old town was a portakabin from when they tore the old one down in 1979 until the late 90s.

I wonder if that date range has anything in common with the new era of portakabin chic?

The internet tells me it was a portakabin until 2003. Had definitely been one for at least 20 years by then. Guess I'll take back my previous unfounded assertion.

I think Swindon public library is still a collection of several portakabins joined together (no longer very porta-, then) and has been since much the same time, but that's the kind of classy, literate place Swindon is, I suppose.

well i was in portakabins in 1996–7 (see above). returned in the autumn and we had buildings. for this tony i thank you.

It was initially expected that Mr Gove would write an apology to the Speaker of the House of Commons.

But Labour's Vernon Coaker has called for Mr Gove to make the apology in person.

Speaker John Bercow echoed this suggestion, saying it would be "more helpful in these circumstances and perhaps more apposite if the relevant minister were indeed to seek to come to the House to make this statement".

Bercow strikes again! :)

why Lab didn't run w this in the general election I don't know. who could look at it and not go DIE DIE DIE DIE.

― dead flower :( (Pashmina), Monday, July 5, 2010 4:53 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/may/06/daily-mirror-david-cameron-bullingdon-club

gillman and soame have an almost total monopoly on group/matriculation/graduation photos in oxford afaict.

The photo has about the same impact as the one PE used to print of Andrew Neil at every opportunity. i.e. none. Still makes me lol (even if it's a rather hollow lol nowadays) though.

what pe photo of andrew neil?

in the strong vest with the azn chick

they still print it at every opportunity, actually.

A strong vest?

typo

http://splinteredsunrise.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/brillo.jpg

just a 'vest' really

and baseball cap

How old must that photo be now? How old must Andrew Neil be now?

Not entirely sure why PE continue to print it as I'm sure most guys are thinking you jammy bastard rather than thinking Neil's a cockfarmer.

Hangover from the Pamella Bordes/ Asian babe era

Not to mention the dodgy connotations of going "lol ageing white man with attractive young Asian girl".

"lol ageing white man with attractive young Asian girl" = (John) Major era meme. Sven-Goran Eriksson (inevitably) was a late contributor.

Not entirely sure why PE continue to print it

It's just become a running joke. And let's face it, Andrew Neil is so eminently mockable.

http://www.bjr.org.uk/data/2005/no2_riddell

When it began in 1994, I found the public school racism fascinating. The woman is a black Afro-American. She was Barbara Walters's make-up artist; the top one in the U.S., and she worked on my show. Fox had to get the best one to do me. Ha ha. Our relationship broke up soon afterwards, and she's completely unaware that she's the most famous face in Private Eye. Then there was supposed to be this huge age difference. At the time, I was 44, and she was 35. That's not bad. And because this woman wasn't white, she had to be an Asian babe, just because they had seen Andrew out with Asian girls before.”

Michael Grovel

Cycled past Andrew Neil a while ago, he was slogging up the slight incline that is the cycle track by the side of the Serpentine, fighting the bars of his bike like a boxer on the ropes, in a suit, face red and sweating under a lopsided helmet. I nearly shouted out 'Knees up Brillo you old cunt' as I went past but refrained out of a no doubt misplaced sense of decency.

huh. that interview quote is pretty good. he is a cunt tho.

Michael Gove is so manifestly not up to a job of this size. It would be hilarious if, y'know, it weren't real kids' education he was fucking up.

But he's supposed to be one of the more intelligent Tories, isn't he? His original performance at the Dispatch Box, the one where he lied, made Osborne seem like a veritable charmer in comparison: arrogant, high-handed and full of himself.

A worthy successor to Ed Balls then!

Dunno, David Willets is the one who always gets mentioned as the brainy one. Admittedly in the way Labour MPs used to refer to David Miliband ie awkward and very geeky.

saw this described as a honeymoon period yesterday, and in a fucked-up way, i guess it is

the news is incredibly bad, but things seem to tick along. there isn't any meaningful opposition or an alternative proposal from labour. so far i don't know anyone who's lost their job as a direct result of the new budget. but at a certain point there has to be a break. even with a tiny amount of perspective the 2010 election has to be regarded as a bad joke, the most undemocratic shit ever pulled. they got away without saying what they would do. now they're doing it, surely people will... i dunno, *do something*.

i get the strong impression gove is one of those people who comes across as much brighter and more reasonable on tv than he does to his friends, colleagues, family, etc.

I think the lack of meaningful opposition thing is the key. But it's also good for Labour at the moment because they're not getting the William Hague/Michael Foot style hazing ritual from the press. The tabloids don't really care what Harriet Harman does because she isn't permanent and Labour aren't the news right now.

Heard the other day that every time Ed Balls appears on TV, George Osbourne is all "we NEED him to win".